Re: Things you have never understood!

Quite sure, thanks. Nutrition major background. It'd be a bad thing if I couldn't read labels. I must be buying an inferior product. Here's the odd thing. We have Philadelphia Cream Cheese in 1oz packets (for ease in traveling in the mornings) ... 0 grams of calcium. Funny it's different from yours.

Where everything has a slight "down-under" flavor and all the pretty boys are named Michael Johns...

Age

39

Posts

667

Re: Things you have never understood!

I googled the calcium content for cream cheese, and in sorting through the varying brands, it appears that most labels list in the range of 0-3% per serving for calcium content. (Not sure how that works out in grams per serving...) Negligible amount, really, if you're looking to get a daily serving of calcium out of it. You'd have to eat a whole lot of cheese at that rate... Of course, I love cream cheese, so that really wouldn't be a bad thing, would it?

Re: Things you have never understood!

Originally Posted by ScoutMom;2517258;

And how come at work management feels the need to send EVERY employee a paper copy of a memo saying there's a paper shortage and to conserve paper????

That's a good one. Technology was supposed to solve the paper crisis, but I don't think it's helped. It seems there is just as much or more than before. Medical records, for example. Our offices have computer files for each patient ... updated during each visit by nurses/staff. Then after the visit the documents are printed and put in patient files. Just in case of hard drive and server failure. The fact that servers and drives are stored at 3 locations (one fireproof) does not seem to matter. But at least it's easy to read printed charts

Re: Things you have never understood!

Originally Posted by Belfastgirl;2499421;

Shameful to say but as a teacher I've never found the greater than and less than symbols easy to understand in maths. I mean < and > . I really have to THINK about them as much as the kids I'm trying to teach!

AND I have never understood all that atom, proton, electron stuff in science, even though I got a good grade in my A level science!

Anyone else got any "mental blanks"

Worked with students for a number of years as well, so I commend you for your efforts, Belfastgirl.

I always had my students turn the greater and less than symbols into arrows. The arrow which points to the left is less (the "L" association) and right is greater.

In time, the line could be faded out as the lessons progressed.

Comb, bomb, tomb: None of these words are pronounced the same. I don't get that.

Re: Things you have never understood!

Plural of louse is lice, after all! It's things like this that make the English language so confusing! And if we have to have "silent" letters, why do we bother to use them at all? It was a treat trying to explain that to my son when he was learning spelling and learning to read!

Re: Things you have never understood!

Originally Posted by prhoshay;2514486;

I'm with you. I think the 'coupon' pronunciation has to do with what you probably heard it called in your house when you were growing up. Even if you decide that you are going to change your pronunciation, it's easy to slip back into pronunciation habits from "back in the day".

I have a friend who is from Appalachia (but hasn't lived there since he was a teenager, and he's in his 50s now), and bless his heart, unless he is really thinking about it, he pronounces "our" as "ay-yer". It actually cracks me up, but is rather endearing and unique to him, since he is the only person from Appalachia that I know. He always threatened to invite me to dinner when his family came to town, but there was no way I was going because I knew I would be out of control!

I just watched a history of Scottish Clans (I found it fascinating) and after the uprising at Culloden in 1746, thousands of scots moved to America and settled in the mountains of NC, VA, TN, etc. Many of the pronunciations, words, etc. of Appalacia are actually Scottish in origin. There is a HUGE Scottish element in the area I live, so it's been interesting finding out the history and finding out just how much of what we think of as "mountain" or "Southern" culture is decendent from the original Scottish settlers. For instance, the KKK didn't come up with cross burning on its own. The Scots brought it from Scotland. Of course, there it meant something totally different. I found it interesting that so many of the words and stuff here are of Scottish decent.